Numerical Instability

Once you pass age 13, it’s pretty easy to find faults in your parents. Some of us outgrow the “Ugh, mom. You’re so stupid!” phase in our 20s. But for many more of us, the things we learn about our parents as we grow into adults begin to stick. They’re flawed just like everyone else -- even if they’re technically geniuses.

Such is the struggle of Catherine, the young woman at the center of the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play Proof, who traces the steps of her recently deceased, mathematically genius but mentally unstable father. Catherine and her father’s protégé discover a proof in his office that could shake the world of mathematics, but first they must prove that it was he who wrote it. And who better to shoulder that burden of proof than his offspring, who may have inherited more than just his ability to process the complexity of numbers?